A play lives in language. An opera lives in duration. One moment in an opera can expand for five minutes. Maybe you give the composer a full sentence. They might take one word and heighten it, expand it even more. Maybe the whole sentence disappears into music. - The Paris Review
After months of protests from musicians and others over the slender qualifications of conductor Beatrice Venezi, the board of La Fenice confirmed her appointment and it looked like she was all set. Then she trash-talked the opera house and its audience to an Argentine newspaper. - The Guardian
In his new position, Rumanes said, he raised “serious and legitimate alarm” over the company’s business practices. As a result, he says, he was “unlawfully terminated,” according to the lawsuit filed Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court. - Los Angeles Times
"As a librettist, I’m always aware that I’m serving the music. It’s a humbling experience. Coming from the world of theater is a good thing, because theater is all about collaboration and interpretation—you place the work in the hands of others, and it begins to transform.” - Paris Review
“Nothing will halt the American addiction to handing out hunks of gilt. For all the supposed independent spirit of the republic, its citizens seem to secretly yearn for the honours system they abandoned in 1776.” - Irish Times
That is to say, “classical” music, and they’re not just for noobs - “There’s plenty for experts to enjoy, too, including detailed structural analyses of specific symphonies and the historical context behind them.” - The New York Times
“There is something in the embodied expression of a trained singer, on stage, in a room with other human beings, that no synthetic content can touch. But in an age when AI generates infinite aesthetic stuff at effectively zero cost, ‘irreplaceable’ needs to be made explicit.” - Opera America
Under the arrangement, the Saudi government would have provided the Met with $200 million in badly needed funding in exchange for the company performing a three-week season at the Royal Diriyah Opera House just outside Riyadh each February for the next three years. - The New York Times
Tech companies with billion-dollar valuations are extracting value from copyrighted music on the internet and selling it as a service: making music-making easier and, they claim, more democratic. But creatives have always found ways to democratize and innovate music and art, long before tech companies tried to bite their flow. - Music Radar
This year’s list is organized by the “No Music for Genocide” initiative, which also calls on anti-Israel artists to have their music geo-blocked inside Israel. - Times of Israel
His contract, which was to expire in summer 2027, has been extended through the 2031-32 season, and the Venezuelan-born conductor’s title is now Music and Artistic Director. (He is also music director of the San Diego Symphony.) - Gramophone
The initial court ruling "was subsequently appealed, overturned and referred on several occasions to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), resulting in a three-decade long legal battle over the regulation of sampling in Europe." -NME
“(John) Dowland was well regarded; (he) was also well-connected, cosmopolitan and at times unusually well-remunerated for his work. Yet his musical expression was dominated by melancholy. With that imbalance comes the sense that Dowland had an acute understanding of his place in the musical market of the time.” - The New York Times
